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As for the future of things, i expect people will create forum-like experiences through the dominant social platforms, maybe even real time and maybe not even permanent. Search for Visvim and part of the results is a way to interact with/aggregate all the other people who have recently searched for Visvim.

As for the future of things, i expect people will create forum-like experiences through the dominant social platforms, maybe even real time and maybe not even permanent. Search for Visvim and part of the results is a way to interact with/aggregate all the other people who have recently searched for Visvim.

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There has to be the discussion though. At least for me, what makes StyleForum fun is the discussion, which is nearly impossible to have on Tumblr or Instagram. At least not in the long, drawn-out ways you see on SF.

This thread is actually a perfect example. Random Fashion Thoughts is pretty much just a chat room, and it's one of my favorite threads on the forum.

Actually, one of the fastest growing platforms for clothing enthusiasts is SoundCloud. People who formerly flocked to Instagram and Tumblr have become increasingly interested in the auditory aspects of clothing rather than just the visual. They want to hear, on demand, the sounds of velcro being undone, snaps snapping, techno fabric pants rubbing together, leather soles hitting hardwood floors, hangers sliding on metal racks. They want to indulge their sartorial fascinations in ways visual media falls short-- listening in their car to field recordings of Uniqlo fitting rooms, falling asleep to the audio book version of the J Crew catalogue. Enthusiasts are ready to move far beyond mere images, and it takes a special kind of social media platform to keep up. Luckily, SoundCloud is here.

There has to be the discussion though. At least for me, what makes StyleForum fun is the discussion, which is nearly impossible to have on Tumblr or Instagram. At least not in the long, drawn-out ways you see on SF.

This thread is actually a perfect example. Random Fashion Thoughts is pretty much just a chat room, and it's one of my favorite threads on the forum.

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Discussion is easy - see Facebook and Twitter for two examples, one real time the other more reactive. The pieces are already in existence just need to be glued together...like most things tech.

I could see forums having their own apps and being sorta like podcasts in their structure with a lot of hashtagging aka classification making them easy to search.

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We are going to be doing podcasts and having more features like buying guides, which lend themselves to short sessions and easy engagement and entry gateways. Tagging is already part of the forum, though ridiculously invisible. Scroll down on the right hand side, and you can both clock to a tag or tag the thread.

Actually, one of the fastest growing platforms for clothing enthusiasts is SoundCloud. People who formerly flocked to Instagram and Tumblr have become increasingly interested in the auditory aspects of clothing rather than just the visual. They want to hear, on demand, the sounds of velcro being undone, snaps snapping, techno fabric pants rubbing together, leather soles hitting hardwood floors, hangers sliding on metal racks. They want to indulge their sartorial fascinations in ways visual media falls short-- listening in their car to field recordings of Uniqlo fitting rooms, falling asleep to the audio book version of the J Crew catalogue. Enthusiasts are ready to move far beyond mere images, and it takes a special kind of social media platform to keep up. Luckily, SoundCloud is here.

Related to LA Guy's point about commerce and kopping threads, it was interesting to read in Vanity Fair's "100 best dressed list" (or similar title) how many of the male celebrities listed Mr Porter as their favorite store.

That's your customer: The people who aren't price sensitive and want the ease of purchasing that MrP offers. I'm surprised that more of the traditional dept stores don't simply copy MrP both for website and brand selection

I should add that I used to start more of these discussions, and that it went from hundreds of responses and thousands of views, to... many fewer, over the years. The people spoke. There is still a membership that wants to see this (see @Caustic Man 's thread), but the interest is just not there for dozens and dozens of conversations that are not product related.

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I did start that thread with a mind for the more old school discussions that used to seemingly happen a lot more on SF. In that sense I agree with DWW. On the other hand I feel like DWW has done very little to stem this tide. His drive-by snarkings are sometimes amusing but kind of contribute to the problems he sees. The great thing about SF was that the snark actually came along with useful information and advise. This is rarely the case in SWD and CM alike nowadays. Some may disagree with this assertion but I believe that it is true. WAYWT has quite a large ratio of simple internet snark. This could be because of the general youth of the posters in that thread. CM is flush with bad advise, some of it coming from long time members. I attribute this to the lack of moderating forces like Manton and Vox who tended to pull the BS back into reality. The point I'm trying to make is that the health of SF is directly related to the WAYWT/WAYWRN threads. These are the threads where a great deal of the day to day advise and improvement comes from for both new members and old.

Discussion is easy - see Facebook and Twitter for two examples, one real time the other more reactive. The pieces are already in existence just need to be glued together...like most things tech.

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The first is still reactive and dominated by the original post. The second is too chaotic and it does not lend itself to focused discussion. Like all things in tech, both platforms do a highly imperfect job of approximating discussions. As do forums. I mean, a 50k post discussion means that we've been at the same bar for years, in the same chairs.One reason brand appreciation and chat room like threads are popular is that you don't need to read for 5 days just to get caught up.

Related to LA Guy's point about commerce and kopping threads, it was interesting to read in Vanity Fair's "100 best dressed list" (or similar title) how many of the male celebrities listed Mr Porter as their favorite store.

That's your customer: The people who aren't price sensitive and want the ease of purchasing that MrP offers. I'm surprised that more of the traditional dept stores don't simply copy MrP both for website and brand selection

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Not gonna lie, Mr Porter's Tuesday emails are one of the very few retail emails I regularly read. And one of my favorite purchases each season tends to be from them. This season, a pair of Guidi chukkas. Last season, a Blue Blue sashiko coat. It's a big enough store that there is always something interesting to see, and the presentation of "new releases" is both big enough to capture my attention but not so big as to overwhelm me in a single sitting.

I think I got here right when most of these so-called prolific members started posting less (fuuma, sipang, pickpack... Etc) so I guess I don't know what I'm missing? Also I've been to the CM side like twice, by accident.

Enthusiast forums are stll alive and well whether gaming, tech, cars, guns, etc. For some hobbies, there are literally no other places to find the same level/amount of information.

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You still can't beat forums for information, when it comes to fashion. It's just that fashion is amenable to highly visual media. People who are hobbyists still flock to forums. However, for people who are drawn primarily to the lifestyle accompanying fashion, tumblr and instagram are very attractive.

Me, I'm fundamentally a nerd. I like clothes. And aside from doing the forum, I consult with various companies, which allows me to approach clothing from a variety of different angles. The strength of Styleforum is not in being super cool. It's in the enthusiastic nerdiness that we bring to our hobby. It's that words still needed to convey a lot of information and it lends a richness that images in and of themselves cannot. Someone like our fearless editor-in-chief, @Synthese , could not convey the same richness of experience only through images, though I do feel that we would like to improve on that level as well.

By contrast, I personally find tumblr clothing feeds to be extremely boring, and I can usually group tumblrs into several categories: #menswear dudes, streetwear dudes, who often have closeups of Visvims, lots of clothing grids with Supreme, etc..., and then, finally, "cool lifestyle" tumblrs, which, nearly invariably, have cool dudes in clothing, usually a mix of fairly basic "this is a dude in NYC" casual and some tailored stuff, "tasteful" nudes of attractive women, often in black and white, and moody scenescapes of bridges, alleys with graffiti, etc... It's a medium that is tailored to the superficial and vastly impersonal. Instagram is slightly better, but because it is still so visual, there is only so much personality that can be injected.